2005•Proceedings of the British Society of Animal ScienceRequires access
The study of replacing maize silage with triticale or barley whole crop silage on feeding the lactating cows
Moosa Vatandoost, Mohsen Danesh Mesgaran, Řeža Valizadeh, H. Nasirimoghaddam
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Abstract
Grass and forage maize are the most important fodder crops for feeding dairy cows. However, on drought prone sandy soils, and in years with insufficient rainfall the yield of maize is very low (7 to 8 tons DM/ha). In situations where water is a limiting factor for growing maize, triticale and barley may be an alternative fodder crop. Triticale grows mainly during the early spring when there usually is a precipitation surplus and so, water is not a limiting factor for growth. When triticale is harvested as triticale whole crop silage the DM yield ranges between 9 and 11 ton of dry matter per hectare. Therefore, under water limiting conditions it may be attractive to replace forage maize by triticale and barley whole crop silage. The objective of this study is to find the effects of replacing maize and barley silage by triticale whole crop silage on feed intake and milk production of lactating Holstein cows.